Year in Review 2013: Disappointments

2013 marked the end of one generation and the beginning of another.  The release of both the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One held center stage in the video game industry.  This focus on the next generation saw fewer games release throughout the year compared to years past.  It was very easy to keep on top of the major releases in 2013 and this year saw yours truly buy many games upon release, much more than I have ever bought in years prior.  With buying many games upon release, not every game will live up to a person's expectations.  There were quite a few games that I played this year that fell short of my expectations and left me disappointed.  Being disappointed in a game is not the same as hating a game.  All of the games I will list are fine games, they just left me feeling a little empty after beating them for one reason or another.

BioShock Infinite
The original BioShock was a revolutionary shooter that engrossed gamers in its environment unlike any game before it and few after it.  The impression left by the first BioShock set the bar high for Irrational's next entry in the BioShock series.  In trying to reach a broader audience, Irrational took BioShock Infinite away from the revolution it could have been and made it more of an evolution.  The setting of Columbia and the excellently programmed AI companion Elizabeth are Infinite's clear strengths, but the game is held back by a considerable amount of key flaws such as the last three hours of the game being a relentless slog of dispatching waves upon waves of enemies, the unnecessary additions of the Boys of Silence and Sirens, the shoe-horned stealth sections and the pretentiously convoluted ending.  The most aggravating flaw is how Irrational forgot the tenets of exploration and freedom that makes Infinite stand out from the all the other first-person shooters in the most crucial hours of the game.  Those last hours can make or break one's enjoyment with a game.  In BioShock Infinite's case, it severely derailed my enjoyment of the game.

The Last of Us
First things first, The Last of Us and I have never been on the same page.  While people were crying to the heavens that it was the best game showed at the Video Game Awards, E3 or whatever other video game show, it never impressed me.  I surely wanted to see what all the fuss was about, but it looked too derivative of Naughty Dog's Uncharted series.  When I saw all the excellent reviews The Last of Us got upon its release, I was caught up in the hype and wanted to see if Naughty Dog proved me wrong.  Well they did not.  Do not get me wrong, The Last of Us is a good game.  It is not the greatest game of this past generation that everybody has been labeling it.  The game has some good ideas and an incredibly emotional story, but those two strengths alone do not allow a game with considerable technical and pacing problems to get a pass.  As much as Naughty Dog tried to engross me in the post-apocalyptic world of The Last of Us, I was taken out from my AI companions running head-first into the strongest enemies in the game, known as clickers, with no reaction from said enemies or hunting for the extremely small triangle button prompt to tell me which objects I can interact with.  While there were some great moments like the entire opening two hours and the Winter section of the game, I never felt much emotional attachment to the characters  or my actions in the game.  The Last of Us is more on par with Naughty Dog's efforts on the first Uncharted.  There is some good stuff in The Last of Us, but there needs to be more refinement before The Last of Us can truly grasp its full potential.

Project X Zone
One of the largest crossovers in video game history, Project X Zone was high on this writer's radar especially considering many never thought the game would release outside of Japan.  Mixing the biggest franchises from Capcom, Namco and Sega into one strategy game was mind-boggling.  Project X Zone's combat was incredibly unique.  While you moved units on a grid-like battlefield like any other strategy game, the combat was more in line with a fighting game where you choose different combos and juggle enemies to cause the most damage.  The combat along with the craziness of the plot gave me hours of enjoyment.  Sadly those hours of enjoyment did not last for the entirety of the game.  Around the 25 to 30 hour mark, the mechanics and story grow rather tiresome and repetitive.  The developers at Banpresto and Monolith Soft could have easily cut down the game by at least 5 hours or more because there are plenty of chapters that feel like padding.  Much like BioShock Infinite, Project X Zone's last few hours became a boring slog through an ever increasing amount of difficult enemies.  Thanks Project X Zone for disappointing me and killing the left trigger on my 3DS.

Sonic Lost World
Ever since the release of Sonic Colors, Sonic the Hedgehog has been on a roll.  The Blue Blur has been slowly but surely gaining back the gamers lost from the onslaught of horrible Sonic games released during the mid to late 2000s.  With the announcement of Sonic becoming a Nintendo exclusive, Sonic Lost World looked to be in a prime position to continue Sonic's upward trend.  All Sonic needed was the solid mechanics introduced in Colors and refined in Generations to be brought into this new Mario Galaxy and Sonic Xtreme inspired world of Sonic Lost Worlds, but Sonic Team decided against it.  What we got was a mixed bag.  Some levels exude creativity and bring the functionality to match it.  Other levels are exactly the opposite as they are poorly designed and can induce high amounts of frustration and possibly rage.  Sonic Lost World is not the total disaster the media paints the game to be.  Honestly, Sonic Lost World is an all-around decent game, but fails at improving the standing of Sega's mascot and it is hard to forgive the game for that major failure.  Lost World was Sonic Team's opportunity to show that the aging Blue Blur can still hang with the platforming giants of the modern era.  Sadly, Sonic Team missed their mark and Sonic fans are left with a decent Sonic game instead of a great Sonic game.

Sonic Generations Review

Sonic Generations was originally released for Xbox 360 and PS3 in early November.  As there was not a version for the Wii, Sega did not want to leave Nintendo out of Sonic’s 25 birthday celebration so they released Sonic Generations for the Nintendo 3DS. 

 

The 3DS version follows the same plot as its console brethren.  An unknown being known as the Time Eater is messing with time and Sonic must team with his past self to stop the Time Eater from destroying time as we know it.  Like in the console version of Sonic Generations, you play levels from past Sonic games from the Genesis Era all the way to the Modern Era as both Classic and Modern Sonic.  Instead of just rehashing the same levels from the console version of Sonic Generation, the 3DS version of the game has six new levels for you to play.  Most of these new levels are fun to play, but there are a couple levels such as the Water Palace that just did not engage enough to make me want to play it again.  Along with the new levels, Dimps brought back the special stages (something that was not in the console games).  These special stages in Sonic Generations are based on the special stages from Sonic Heroes as Sonic chases a chaos emerald down a long tube.  Rather than the special stages be four to five minutes long like in Sonic Heroes, Dimps reduced the time to one to two minutes timed affairs in order to complement the portable nature of the game.  Personally I really enjoyed the special stages in Sonic Generations due to the fast gameplay that really tests your hand-eye coordination.  After completing a certain number of stages in each era, you unlock a boss gate.  A boss gate contains two challenges for Sonic.  The first challenge is a race against one of his three rivals (Metal Sonic, Shadow and Silver).  The second challenge is boss battle against a boss from a past Sonic game such as Big Arm, the final boss from Sonic 3.  The boss gates like the majority of the game area lot of fun.  Dimps even improved the boss battles for the Biolizard and the Time Eater, which were a mess in their respective games.

With all the fun that I had with Sonic Generations for the 3DS, there are quite a few drawbacks that keep this game from surpassing its console brethren.  First off, the game’s presentation is great except for one thing, the cutscenes.  Usually I am not up and arms about cutscenes in a game, but the talking models standing in white space cutscenes just don't do it for me.  These cutscenes were acceptable on the Nintendo DS as it did not have a lot of power, but the 3DS is a new much more powerful handheld that can handle actual in-game cutscenes.  Dimp’s efforts just look lazy and rushed.  Secondly, having Classic Sonic learn both the Homing Attack and Boost might be cool, but it defeats the purpose of Sonic Generations as now there is not much of a difference between playing with Classic or Modern Sonic.  Finally, the game is just a tad short.  While the console version of Sonic Generations took me close to 8 hours to beat, Sonic Generations for the 3DS can be beaten in 3 to 4 hours.  The missions will lengthen the time you spend with the game, but they are hard to unlock as the way to unlock them is not clearly defined.

At one point in time, handheld Sonic games were way much better than what Sega was releasing on the consoles.  It seems right now the roles have reversed.  While it is not by a landslide, Sonic Generations for the 3DS is not better than its console brethren.  With fast, fun gameplay, good 3D graphics, excellent music and enjoyable and unique missions (when you finally unlock some), Sonic Generations for the 3DS serves as a really good companion game for those who own the console Sonic Generations game.  Also if you are a 3DS owner looking for a portable platformer to play in short bursts, Sonic Generations is a great game for you.